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Now, granted, I don’t even have a Clickwheel-capable iPod (I have a 3G at the moment), and I don’t even know what size screen the newest ones have, but I can’t imagine that Schlock would look good on that screen. Even if it scrolled left-to-right…the gestalt of Schlock is part of the fun.

Frankly, I can’t envision how any Clickwheel comics look. I have faith in T Campbell’s ideas, but this one seems off the wall.

Right. No iPod, can’t conceive of what I’d ever do with one, no intention of ever buying one. I Have Not Been Assimilated. I am still outside the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field.

Matter of fact, I don’t own any kind of portable MP3 player, or in fact any portable music player at all. I also don’t have a PDA. Nor is there a camera in my phone. And I still use a desktop with a real keyboard, not a laptop.

First, I don’t have an iPod. If I did, I would probably, given the chance, read Schlock on it.
If I did have an iPod and read Shlock on it, I would probably be more likely to read it online than pay.
However, had I the iPod, the disposable income and the need for Schlock, I would be willing to pay to read Schlock on my iPod.
That all clear?

I have an iPod, but between working on a computer as my day job and using one for fun at night, I rarely lack an opportunity to check Schlock on a given day. Often at 8 PM the night before! (Yay, West Coast.) Between that and the (presumed) effort to get something like that set up, I just don’t see it as worth my time, much less my money.

If I wanted Schlock that I can take with me away from the warm, comforting embrace of the Internet, I’d buy a book. *cough*

Considering I don’t have an iPod, I said no. Of course, since I read it immediately upon update each night at 10:00, and since things coming via iPod tend to come a bit AFTER the initial release, it would be redundant anyway.

I’d have to go with what seems to be the consensus here: I’m a video-iPod owner, and I’m willing to pay to feed it (with legal music and an Audible.com subscription), but I wouldn’t read comics on the iPod even if they were free.

Reasoning: The screen on even the new iPods is dinky. It’s harder to read and watch stuff on it than it is on a proper monitor. If I’m going to be trapped in a car/plane/blimp for an hour and a half, and I really want to watch a movie, then I’ll use it, because the alternative is lugging a laptop around, and the convenience is worth the loss in the viewing experience. Likewise, it’s great for showing people photos, because you can carry your whole photo library in it, and the alternatives (a laptop or a box full of prints) are lousy. But when it comes to a webcomic, which takes maybe fifteen seconds to read, there’s just no question about it: I’d want to sit down at a computer somewhere and read it properly, rather than trying to read a version that’s been squashed down to the size of a small newspaper comic (with much crappier resolution than the newspaper).

Now, with the larger screen on the PSP, it just might — emphasis on might — be doable. But I don’t think the size of the audience that (a) has a PSP, and (b) has the technical sophistication to download podcasted comic content to it, is even worth considering at this point. Sony would have to put out much better transfer software, and ship it with the new PSPs, before this will likely change. (And even then, there’s no telling what unholy DRM they’d try to impose in the process.)

I think it’s worth mentioning that comics presented on the iPod are done so with a panel filling the entire screen – the artwork is sharp, the colors are vibrant, and the text is incredibly readable. They look GREAT.

That said, it still doesn’t eliminate the hassle of actually putting the comics ON the iPod.

I voted no to both, but my mp3 player is grayscale. If the comics had a grayscale version, I’d probably read them, except for the whole “too low of a resolution to read text properly” issue. As it is, it still has some appeal to try. (My MP3 player doesn’t support image viewing natively, but can, and even scales them nicely thanks to the Rockbox project. Nice alternative firmware, soon coming to iPod I think.)

That’s what I’m thinking too – I don’t own an iPod, personally. But while I wouldn’t pay money for Schlock on an iPod, I *might* put selected strips on it to show to people.

If the trouble of putting it together really is that significant, I don’t know if it would be worthwhile or not, but if it would just be a few hours to get it set up and processing automatically, it might be worthwhile just for the PR.

I wouldn’t read it on iPod. Having a collection of strips that could be easily displayed on a PSP or PDA, I might pay to get, since both have far better screens with better resolutions. 😀 Right now I -can- read Schlock on the small screen… but PIE resizes things in a way that makes it horrible to read, and Minimo doesn’t work on my device yet.

Ugh, too convoluted. I betcha I could have weeks of backlog read in the time it’d take to set things up and get the strips loaded on my iPod. Besides, how tiny is the 4G-color screen, anyhow? Even for a text-driven, panel-based strip like this one, the process of reading it would be frustrating and unsatisfying.

Me too, me too… I have no iPod and no interest in one. And I’m old enough that I don’t want to be peering at a teeny-tiny screen to read a comic strip when I’m perfectly happy reading off my nice big monitor at my desk.

A. An ipod’s screen is probably too small. It’s also non-connected, so really I’d need to have more incentive to do something like this. If ALL of my comics could be downloaded to several months of archives back, then maybe. Just today’s strip of several comics or the archives of a single comic wouldn’t be enough to warrant the trouble of setting it up, but i’m months behind on a number of webcomics that I read. Also, I’d probably want to do it on my PalmOS enabled device rather than on an IPOD, but any media player with a larger screen would suffice. I really do need to track down that garmin Ique 3600 to buy though!

The new video iPod has a great screen, but I’m doubtful that it would work for Scholck. The intrinsic problem would seem to me to be that the text of you comic, which is often tightly packed together, would dissapear into unreadability. That would leave us with only the pretty pictures – not a bad second choice, mind you.

I think you should have split “no” into “no I wouldnt” and “no I dont have an ipod”. Given a lot of the comments it seems like most of the people who said no are simply people who dont have an ipod, and arent going to buy one.

Personaly, as a recent new owner of an ipod, would use it. Yes, the page can load in 2 seconds anyway, but it’d be cool to show off to other people, and would give me something to do while traveling.

The main problems, as have been described, is that it’d take a lot longer to download to the ipod, and that it’d be better looking at it on the monitor.

If there was a way of subscribing like there is with podcasts, it would eliminate the first problem, prod in your ipod and download it automaticaly. I’m guessing that feature isnt available though (not to my knowledge). The other problem is the size of the comic on the ipod. Having different sized frames, that comes out as a problem, each frame will have to be cropped and resized to fit on the screen.

If the trouble was made though, I would definately use it. As for the cost, I actualy voted no, but I’d probably lean into $5 a month fine (well, I live in england, thats only like £2.50 XD).

I would also say “no” to this, for the daily commics at least. If the comics were readable (I don’t know but would have to check) I WOULD purchase a library of the comics if available (eBook like) that I could browse through on a plane or elsewhere. Generally if only the current comic was available, I would prefer to read it on my computer anyway.

Dan Strohl

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